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DBMS > Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

System Properties Comparison Microsoft SQL Server vs. Neo4j vs. RDF4J

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameMicrosoft SQL Server  Xexclude from comparisonNeo4j  Xexclude from comparisonRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionMicrosofts flagship relational DBMSScalable, ACID-compliant graph database designed with a high-performance distributed cluster architecture, available in self-hosted and cloud offeringsRDF4J is a Java framework for processing RDF data, supporting both memory-based and a disk-based storage.
Primary database modelRelational DBMSGraph DBMSRDF store
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Graph DBMS
Spatial DBMS
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score774.89
Rank#3  Overall
#3  Relational DBMS
Score47.91
Rank#20  Overall
#1  Graph DBMS
Score0.68
Rank#223  Overall
#9  RDF stores
Websitewww.microsoft.com/­en-us/­sql-serverneo4j.comrdf4j.org
Technical documentationlearn.microsoft.com/­en-US/­sql/­sql-serverneo4j.com/­docsrdf4j.org/­documentation
DeveloperMicrosoftNeo4j, Inc.Since 2016 officially forked into an Eclipse project, former developer was Aduna Software.
Initial release198920072004
Current releaseSQL Server 2022, November 20225.23, August 2024
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial inforestricted free version is availableOpen Source infoGPL version3, commercial licenses availableOpen Source infoEclipse Distribution License (EDL), v1.0.
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenonono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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SQLServer Flex @ STACKIT offers a managed version of SQL Server with adjustable CPU, RAM, storage amount and speed, in enterprise grade to perfectly match all application requirements. All services are 100% GDPR-compliant.
Implementation languageC++Java, ScalaJava
Server operating systemsLinux
Windows
Linux infoCan also be used server-less as embedded Java database.
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Linux
OS X
Unix
Windows
Data schemeyesschema-free and schema-optionalyes infoRDF Schemas
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyesyesyes
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yes
Secondary indexesyesyes infopluggable indexing subsystem, by default Apache Luceneyes
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesnono
APIs and other access methodsADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
OLE DB
Tabular Data Stream (TDS)
Bolt protocol
Cypher query language
Java API
Neo4j-OGM infoObject Graph Mapper
RESTful HTTP API
Spring Data Neo4j
TinkerPop 3
Java API
RIO infoRDF Input/Output
Sail API
SeRQL infoSesame RDF Query Language
Sesame REST HTTP Protocol
SPARQL
Supported programming languagesC#
C++
Delphi
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Visual Basic
.Net
Clojure
Elixir
Go
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scala
Java
PHP
Python
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresTransact SQL, .NET languages, R, Python and (with SQL Server 2019) Javayes infoUser defined Procedures and Functionsyes
Triggersyesyes infovia event handleryes
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodestables can be distributed across several files (horizontal partitioning); sharding through federationyes using Neo4j Fabricnone
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesyes, but depending on the SQL-Server EditionCausal Clustering using Raft protocol infoavailable in in Enterprise Version onlynone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnonono
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyCausal and Eventual Consistency configurable in Causal Cluster setup
Immediate Consistency in stand-alone mode
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesyes infoRelationships in graphs
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDACIDACID infoIsolation support depends on the API used
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyes infoin-memory storage is supported as well
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yes
User concepts infoAccess controlfine grained access rights according to SQL-standardUsers, roles and permissions. Pluggable authentication with supported standards (LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos)no
More information provided by the system vendor
Microsoft SQL ServerNeo4jRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame
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More resources
Microsoft SQL ServerNeo4jRDF4J infoformerly known as Sesame
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